


All in a Day's Work

by alchemicink



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen, Humor, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Slice of Life, Snippets, but these are too long to be drabbles tbh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-06-26 03:57:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 3,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15655293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemicink/pseuds/alchemicink
Summary: Sometimes Marcus wonders to himself what exactly he's gotten into by working with Sherlock and Joan. A lot of weirdness, that's for sure.





	1. Shall We Undress?

**Author's Note:**

> So I decided to write a collection of short fic snippets of Marcus, Sherlock, and Joan. None of these snippets connect to each other. They're really more supposed to be like fun glimpses into their lives working together. Not meant to be set during any particular season.
> 
> I've gotten several written so far, but as of right now, I'm not sure how many I'll do in total. So new ones will be added somewhat sporadically. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

"Shall we undress?"

Joan gives Sherlock an unimpressed stare as she looks up from her papers, but she can't hold her expression once she notices Marcus' horrified look at both of them. 

"He means undress the wall," Joan explains, gesturing to where all their leads and clues had been put up as a better way to examine them while they sort through information in the Brownstone. Sherlock likes to rearrange whenever they get stuck and need a new perspective. 

"Good," Marcus replies with relief as he sets down the stack of files in his hands. "Because I was about to regret agreeing to help sort through this stuff if things started getting kinky around here." 

Sherlock starts pulling thumb tacks out of the wall. "Oh things get kinky around here, but it's usually after 3am and involves a copious amount of rope." 

Marcus grimaces and then runs his hands across his face as if he's trying to manually wipe away whatever mental image he'd just conjured up. 

"Perhaps we should get back to the case," Joan says, bringing them back on topic before Marcus decides never to speak to them ever again. 

"Good," Sherlock says, taking a step back to examine the wall again. "Because I think I have a new theory, and it involves goats."


	2. Pie in the Sky

When Marcus returns from the restroom, he’s surprised to find three pies sitting on his desk. 

Well no, _surprised_ perhaps isn’t the best word because working with Sherlock and Joan for this long has taught him that anything and everything can happen during the course of an investigation. 

He guessed he just wasn’t expecting to return back to his desk and find a mini-bakery waiting for him there. 

“Ah, you’ve returned!” Sherlock says, noticing his presence and handing him a fork. “Dig in.” 

“These aren’t poisoned, are they?” Marcus replies in a deadpan voice. He’s only half-joking with the question. 

Sherlock shakes his head and takes a bite of what looks to be an apple pie. Behind him, there are about six more pies on the desk Joan usually uses when she’s in the office. 

“I’ve identified the mysterious substance found at the crime scene as pie filling, so the next step was figuring out _which_ kind of pie it was specifically,” Sherlock explains in between bites, and then gestures towards the food. “Thus, I ordered a sampling of everything the nearest bakery had to offer.” 

“Luckily for us,” he continued, “I happened to find the correct pie on the first try. Joan and Captain Gregson have just left to go ask the owner a few questions.”

“…I was in the restroom for like two minutes tops,” Marcus mutters in disbelief before addressing Sherlock with the obvious question. “So what are we doing with the rest of the pies?” 

Sherlock dangles the fork in front of him again. “Bon appétit!”


	3. Part of your world

“Don’t tell me… he’s in the pool, isn’t he?” Marcus asks with a frown, trying to ignore the overwhelming scent of chlorine. 

“Of course he’s in the pool,” Joan answers, mirroring Marcus’ expression. Her voice echoes off the walls of the indoor facility, making her disapproval sound all the more ominous. 

Marcus looks over to the pool, and sure enough, he can see Sherlock swimming around in the shallow end of the pool, seemingly inspecting the bottom with his hands. He’s still fully clothed—shoes and all—in the outfit he had been wearing earlier in the morning when they picked up the case. 

“He said he was going to test a theory while we’re waiting,” Joan explains. 

“I guess he knows how to swim,” Marcus says with a quiet chuckle. 

Before Joan can respond, the owner of the facility they’d been waiting to speak with finally approaches. She greets them with a pleasant smile. 

“You must be the people from the police station,” she notes before introducing herself. 

“Yes,” Joan nods. “I’m Joan Watson, and this is my colleague Detective Marcus Bell.” 

At that moment, Sherlock surfaces at the edge of the pool, taking a deep breath of fresh air. He takes a moment to blink the chlorine-filled water out of his eyes and wipe the water droplets off his forehead.

“And this is Sherlock Holmes, our resident mermaid,” Marcus says dryly.


	4. Strictly Business

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is my personal favorite so far :D

Marcus leans back in his chair, rubbing his face with his hands. After hours of reading through reports, he’s ready to go home and sleep for a whole week. Or at least just close his eyes for a good long while. 

Joan enters the office and heads towards him. She’s holding a small package which she deposits onto his desk as she takes the empty chair. 

“That something for the case?” he asks, eyebrow raised in confusion. 

“No,” Joan sighs, and he can tell she’s resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “It’s a… _gift_ from Sherlock.” She pauses as she reconsiders her words. “Well, he’d call it a gift anyway.” 

Marcus throws a wary glance at the small box. “Please tell me there’s not a severed body part inside the box.” 

Joan laughs with a little shake of her head. Marcus opens up the package, and then breathes a little sigh of relief when he finds only a stack of what looks to be normal business cards inside.

“It’s a long story,” Joan begins, “but apparently Sherlock ended up ordering fake business cards for all of us. You can ask him the details about it later.”

Marcus picks up the card on top and reads the contents out loud. “Arcusmay Ellbay: Pig Latin Tutor?” he questions with a laugh. “What the heck is that? That’s not even a real job.” 

Joan shrugs, looking amused by Marcus’ fake business card. “Like I said, you’d have to ask Sherlock for the details. I don’t get it either.” She pulls a business card out of her pocket. “He did mine entirely in Mandarin.” 

Marcus glances over the card but he’s not able to read any of the kanji printed on it. 

“It says I’m an instructor who teaches people’s pets how to surf,” she translated, trying to stifle her own laughter at the idea. 

“Oh, I bet you’re in high demand this time of year with the weather being so nice,” Marcus teases. 

She rolls her eyes, shaking her head again. “Well, have fun with your business cards. I might _accidentally_ drop mine down a sewer grate later.” She stands back up. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a delivery to make to ‘Tommy Gregson, Professional Dungeon Master’.”


	5. We all wear masks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna save this one for closer to Halloween, but oh well. I felt the urge to post it tonight.

“All the best ones are taken already,” Sherlock sighs. “This will have to do.” 

In one hand, he holds up a Mexican wrestling mask to which Joan gives an unimpressed stare instead of taking, and in the other, a baseball umpire mask which Marcus just side-eyes.

“We don’t do undercover work,” Marcus points out. 

“Nonsense,” Sherlock replies, getting tired of waiting and finally just shoving both masks into their hands. “I often employ a variety of different accents on the phone when trying to gather information on certain cases.” 

“He also sometimes does that while ordering pizza too,” Joan mutters. 

“Come on now, we have a suspect to talk to,” Sherlock says as he puts on a white curly beard to complete the Santa outfit he was wearing. “Time is of the essence.” 

Joan and Marcus exchange an exasperated look before they put on their masks as well before following Sherlock to the party inside. Nevermind that their masks clash with the suits they’re wearing.

“I hate working on Halloween,” Marcus sighs. “Costume parties are the worst.”


	6. Sore Loser

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to resume posting sooner, but life got in the way. Oh well! I'm back now. I wrote this one because I always wonder what they do when they have to drive out of the city to interview witnesses/suspects etc :D 
> 
> Btw, since the season 6 finale has aired, I should point out that these snippets going forward will be set anytime before the season 6 finale. That's probably obvious, but I figure I should say it anyway. Maybe I'll change my mind once season 7 starts airing. (Also, how about that finale guys?? Thoughts??)

“I spy with my little eye… something green,” Joan says. 

From his position in the car’s driver seat, Marcus can just barely see her satisfied smirk, but he doesn’t focus on it long. He’s got to say something quick if he wants to beat Sherlock. 

“That billboard for a plant nursery,” Marcus guesses, taking one hand off the steering wheel to point in the general direction of the item up ahead.

Joan nods. “Another point for Marcus.” 

“I think this game is rigged,” Sherlock declares from the back seat, sounding uncannily like a petulant child not accustomed to losing. 

“It’s not rigged,” Joan answers, twisting around in her seat to face Sherlock. “It’s apparently just the one game you’re not good at. You take too long to think about what your guess is going to be. Just say something random.” 

Marcus absentmindedly nods in agreement, more focused at the moment on changing lanes to pass a slow car. They were still at least twenty minutes away from their destination: the house of a witness they needed to question. 

“The problem with _I Spy_ is that the hint is so vague,” Sherlock says, beginning to list his complaints about the child’s game once again. “Like what _shade_ of green is it? Is it a stationery object we will drive past or something attached to a vehicle we are passing? In the hour we’ve been playing this game, you’ve spied something green three times and one of those times was a tiny hula dancer figurine on the dashboard of a car which happened to be passing us at that exact moment.” 

“That’s why you have to be quick to guess instead of overthinking it.” Joan sounds unmoved by her partner’s complaints. 

Actually, Marcus is pretty sure she’s enjoying this. It’s so rare to see Sherlock not a confident master at something. 

“We should go back to playing Categories,” Sherlock suggests. “How about land-locked African countries?”

“I spy with my little eye… a sore loser,” Marcus says, ignoring the suggestion. 

“It’s Sherlock,” Joan answers quickly. 

Marcus nods. “Another point for Joan.” 

Glancing at the rearview mirror, Marcus sees Sherlock with a bit of a petulant pout on his face. For a moment Marcus can almost imagine what Sherlock would have been like as a young kid getting impatient during a road trip. It’s almost cute.

But if Sherlock decides to resort to constantly asking “are we there yet?”, Marcus is going to have to pull the car over.


	7. Sock it to me

On his way back to the precinct after interviewing a witness, Marcus gets caught in a sudden downpour. Rain hadn’t been in the day’s forecast, so he has nothing to prepare himself for the onslaught. He grimaces at the uncomfortable way his wet clothes cling to his skin as he walks into the office, but there’s not much he can do about it now. There’s no time to go home and change while they’re hot on the trail of the murderer. 

“We think we have a new theory…” Joan says but then trails off as she sees the state of his clothes. “Are you okay?” 

“I’ll dry out eventually,” he says, ignoring the squishing sound as he walks to his desk. 

Sherlock enters the room and pauses to stare at Marcus and the dripping water pooling around his feet. He then glances at the window which only contains sunny blue skies now. 

“Did you go swimming in the river looking for the murder weapon?” he asks. 

Marcus knows that’s not a serious question—Sherlock is a better detective than that—so he just shoots an annoyed stare in response. 

“I don’t have any dry clothes for you to borrow,” Sherlock says, completely impervious to the stare. He reaches into his jacket and then pulls out a pair of socks. “But you can wear these if you’d like.” 

Marcus takes the brightly colored blue argyle socks with tiny little red crabs and lobsters decorating the fabric. They look like something you would find at a tacky gift shop at the beach.

“Do you just carry around spare socks all the time?” he asks. 

“Of course,” Sherlock replies, picking up a stack of papers from his desk to avoid getting them wet. He offers no other explanation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to share the most ridiculous socks you've ever seen or can imagine :P


	8. Get a Clue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so October ended up being a ridiculously busy month for me, but I'm finally back to share another one of these snippets! Enjoy!

Sherlock takes a deep breath before he speaks. 

“It’s simple. I conclude that Mrs. Scarlet, wanting to keep the secret of her parentage hidden, took drastic measures to ensure the truth never came out. She paid off Mr. Green to secure her fake alibi—that she and him were quietly playing a game of Bridge in the study all night—while she manipulated evidence to frame the other party guests. Through numerous interviews with childhood friends, one can see plainly that Mrs. Scarlet is a pathological liar and that lies come as easy to her as breathing. So unbeknownst to everyone else, when the clock struck midnight, she entered the kitchen. The blood splatter around the victim would suggest the murder weapon was a long blunt object such as a nearby candlestick. She viciously struck the victim several times upon the head so that her secret died with him. Then she slipped away back to the study through the secret passageway so no one would suspect her.”

Marcus sighs, pulling out three cards which say “Mrs. Scarlet” and “candlestick” and “kitchen.” 

“Will you stop making up backstories for all the characters in this game?” he complains, annoyed that he had lost the board game _Clue_ again when he had almost been about to make a guess of his own. 

“But that’s what makes this game tolerable,” Sherlock replies. 

Marcus looks to Joan for support but she merely shrugs.

“You should have seen the time we tried to play Monopoly,” she says. 

“Best five out of seven?” Sherlock asks, shuffling the game cards again hopefully.


	9. Tutu Twirls

Marcus looks up from his case file and sees Sherlock walk by wearing a bright pink tutu. He’s wearing all his normal clothes underneath as usual, so the fluffy pink fabric looks out of place. Marcus glances briefly at his calendar, thinking maybe he’d forgotten it was Halloween. But the calendar confirms the holiday had already passed a few days ago.

“Did he lose a bet?” he turns to ask Joan. 

“He owed Everyone for a favor,” Joan explains before shrugging, turning back to the files she was reading to confirm their suspect’s alibi. 

“Oh, I should have guessed.” He remembers a few months ago when Sherlock had to paint his face blue for a day to appease the childish internet hackers. 

“If you’re free during your lunch break,” Joan continues, looking up from her computer screen again, “the other half of Sherlock’s punishment is performing a dance from _Swan Lake_ in a public place at noon.” She pulls a pair of ballet shoes out of her bag. “He chose the back alley if you want to watch.” 

Marcus nods, but then adds, “don’t you guys think you should stop owing these people favors?”


	10. Pop Quiz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock is, _of course_ , the kind of friend who does this. Right? I think so anyway.

Marcus grabs his cup and makes his way across the coffee shop to the table where Sherlock is waiting already. They skip the typical “how are you?” small talk pleasantries because they see each other enough at work to already know the answers. 

It’s not often Marcus and Sherlock simply hang out while they’re not working on a case, but it’s nice every now and then to grab a cup of coffee together. Marcus sips his drink, trying to think of a conversation topic that’s unrelated to work but won’t also set Sherlock off on a lecture about something strange like the global pineapple trade. (They’d discussed that last week.) 

“Time for a quiz,” Sherlock declares out of the blue as he pulls out a random stack of notecards from his pocket. 

“Uh… what?” He takes an extra large gulp of his coffee because now he really feels like he needs it. 

“To sharpen your identification skills,” Sherlock begins to explain, holding up one of the cards. “I’ve compiled a list of different models of car. All you need do is tell me what they are based on the photo.” 

Marcus leans back, giving him a skeptical look as he tries to figure out whether or not Sherlock is joking. “You know I’m not one of your protégées, right? And that I have had years of detective training myself?” 

“Of course,” Sherlock nods seriously. “But it never hurts to keep sharpening your skills and keeping your mind fresh. Education is a lifelong task.” 

This is not exactly how he envisioned hanging out with Sherlock would go, but in hindsight he figures it is _exactly_ what he should have expected. 

“Alfredo took the same quiz last week, and _he_ enjoyed it,” Sherlock adds as extra incentive. 

“Alfredo deals with cars for a living,” Marcus points out. “I’m sure he aced it.” 

Sherlock smiles. “Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. I’ll tell you his score after you take the quiz.” He waves the cards to make them look more enticing. 

“Alright, fine,” he says. “But if I ace this too, I get to give _you_ a quiz on something. Like which football teams are going to make the playoffs this year or something.” 

“I don’t see how that would be very educational, but fine. I agree to your terms,” Sherlock nods. “Let’s begin, shall we?”


	11. Clydesitting Part 1

“You needn’t worry. Clyde is typically a very low-maintenance pet,” Sherlock says even though he’s just handed Marcus a thick tome entitled _How to Care for Your Pet Tortoise._

Marcus cracks it open to scan a few pages, but he catches a glimpse of a section labeled “Mating Habits” and decides he doesn’t really want to read any of the book right now. 

“We’ll only be gone a week,” Joan says, sounding much more relaxed and confident in Marcus’ pet-sitting abilities. “He mainly just needs to have fresh water every day and food every other.” 

Sherlock produces a laminated piece of paper and thrusts that into Marcus’s hands too. “Here’s a schedule for his dietary needs. He’s happier when he gets a variety of different meals throughout the week. And he’s particularly fond of dandelions and fennel, so if he starts acting grumpy, you can give him some of that for dessert.” 

Marcus almost asks how he’s supposed to tell whether or not a tortoise is grumpy, but he decides he’ll be less confused if he doesn’t. 

“If there’s a problem, you can always call Ms. Hudson,” Joan adds. “Or us, of course. But the time difference between here and London might make that difficult.” 

“I’ve also compiled a list of Clyde’s favorite music,” Sherlock says. “Feel free to try to introduce him to some new music if you’d like. But whatever you do, I strongly caution you to not play anything by The Eagles. He’s very particular about that.” 

Marcus bites back a laugh as he sees Joan roll her eyes behind Sherlock. 

“I promise I’ll take good care of Clyde while you’re on your trip,” Marcus says before Sherlock starts giving him anymore oddly specific instructions. “Say hi to Kitty for me while you’re in London.” 

“We leave Clyde in your very capable hands,” Sherlock says as he picks up Clyde and literally deposits the small tortoise into Marcus’ hands despite the fact that he’s still holding all the educational pet-sitting materials too. 

Marcus looks down at Clyde, and Clyde looks up lazily at him. 

“Now then,” Sherlock continues. “About the bees…”


	12. Clydesitting Part 2

Clyde looks like he doesn’t have a care in the world as he munches on some fresh lettuce. Marcus watches, wondering what the young tortoise thinks about all day. 

Probably something like snarky comments about the weird stuff that goes on in the Brownstone every day. 

“Oh the things you could tell me if you could talk,” Marcus says to himself, then remembers the collection of ninja throwing stars he saw embedded in the wall by the front door earlier. “On second thought, I probably don’t want to know.” 

While Clyde eats, Marcus wraps up the head of lettuce he’d brought and goes to store it in the fridge for use later in the week. 

“Maybe I can give him some carrots for dessert,” he mutters as he opens the door. 

He’s immediately assaulted with a wave of weird smells, like a mix of chocolate and pineapples and rancid meat. With a hand clapped over his nose, he cautiously peeks further into the refrigerator to find the source of the awful smell. In the back corner of the middle shelf, there’s a large container with a note attached which reads “Do not eat or throw out. Experiment in progress. Apologies for the smell.” 

It is, of course, Sherlock’s scrawl for the first two sentences. The apology is in Joan’s handwriting. 

Marcus quietly closes the fridge and takes a step back, breathing in slightly better smelling air. 

"Clyde, you live with crazy people.” 

The tortoise looks up from his meal of lettuce and gives him a look which seems to say “tell me something I don’t know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double update to make up for my lack of posting last week. Also, unfortunately, this will be my last update for a few weeks. I'm going to spend some time working on new snippets to add to this story, so I'll have several saved up and ready to go once I resume posting again. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading so far! I'm glad so many of you have enjoyed it!


End file.
